See Chapter One for Disclaimer

Tailed

It took three hours to find the man: to find Zach Daniels.

Two of those hours were spent scouring the internet.

The Saints were a football team, not the best, and not the worst.

That meant that it was mostly unimportant, rarely mentioned. It took an insane amount of time to inspect the rosters, and an hour to realize that Zach Daniels did not play for the Saints.

Instead, he must work for them.

The next hour was spent hacking and perusing personnel reports.

Finally, Zach Daniels was found: a sports therapist who listed his permanent address as a place in Houston.

Seeing as they were in New York City, he would've been out of luck, had he not been intelligent.

The rest of Zach Daniels' file mentioned an emergency contact, a name that was unfortunately familiar.

Not only had he been forced to miss his connecting flight, but the very place he'd been heading was the same place Mr. Daniel's emergency contact was currently located.

Mr. Daniel taking his bag had not been an accident: it had been a mission; one his friend had put him up to.

And now that he knew the game, Mr. Daniel's was no longer going to get off easy.

"Looking for anything in particular?"

Zach startled, his bag nearly flying off his shoulder. The elderly woman smiling patiently at his side just blinked.

"Oh, uh," Zach smiled awkwardly. "Yes, actually. I'm meeting with a friend I haven't seen in years, and I don't want to go in empty handed."

"Well of course not, that would hardly be good manners!" The woman teased lightly. "Is this friend a romantic interest?" She asked lightly, and Zach's cheeks burned.

"No, he's a guy."

The woman just blinked at him, and Zach coughed. "No – we're just friends."

"Well flowers and chocolates are out. How about a nice wine?"

"I uh, don't think he's a big drinker; it was a big vice for all of us during our tours."

"Army." The woman's eyes sharpened. "Well then, how about a food you didn't have access to while overseas, one perhaps he mentioned a particular craving for?"

And Zach had sudden clarity of a moment, after the deaths of friends, while the war still raged and the jets still called, drunker than a skunk but still coherent enough to dream of things left at home: women, families, and a particular treat, fried and yellow and something they hadn't had access to overseas.

"Thank you ma'am," He smiled brightly, and she smiled back.

"No," she corrected, "Thank you. Have a good day!" Zach hurried for the aisle he was looking for, accidentally bumping into someone along the way.

He turned slightly to apologize, but the man kept moving, turning the corner so quickly that all Zach saw was a flash of green.

Zach frowned slightly, then shrugged and continued on his mission.

His sense of foreboding was random, and totally unwarranted, of course.

Grinning slightly as he sped around the corner, his hand twitching from the precision he'd just had to use to slip something into Mr. Daniel's bag, he knew all he would have to do was wait. Once the man had made the detectors go off, his bag would of COURSE have to be searched, and then hopefully he could sneak in, take back the journal and it would all be fine.

His plan could NOT be derailed, not after he'd worked for so long on it.

This Zach Daniels, this sneaky American who thought he could get away with acting innocent, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Once a soldier, always a soldier.

"I promise you, you don't have to look in my bag."

"You could be a terrorist."

"I'm not a terrorist!"

Zach could not believe this. Worst day ever. "I just came in to buy some Twinkies!"

"Oh really?" For a supermarket, these guys were very paranoid. "Then why won't you show us the bag?"

"Guys!" Zach pleaded. "I'm just ex air-force trying to recover from that horrible game against the Raiders by meeting with another veteran for drinks! I'm not a terrorist, but I do value my privacy! You can look through it, just don't take anything out or keep the bag, please!" Zach flushed bright red.

"Against the Raiders, huh?" The man holding tight to Zach's bag loosened his grip slightly. "You play for the Saints then?"

"Work with the team, yeah," Zach admitted miserably. "I'm a sports therapist."

The man considered Zach for a moment, then lifted the flap of Zach's bag slowly. His eyes widened, and his hand dipped inside, and Zach grimaced, but the man simply pulled out a candy bar.

"Must've just fallen in," the man said simply, and then he handed the bag back. "We're sorry for wasting your time."

Zach blinked dumbly.

"You're free to go."

That was it?

That was IT?!

What was this American saying, that he'd been able to just walk away so easily…more than ONCE?

The frustration was rising and the clock was ticking, and he needed his bag back, and he needed it NOW.

Going the subtle route had not worked.

It was now time to be more obvious.

Taken

"What do you mean you're in Germany? What happened to "We both work too hard, let's take a break!? Let's meet up for drinks! I could've flown straight home and been in bed already – but instead, I stopped in YOUR crazy hometown so we could meet up, and you're not even here?" Zach took a detour, shoving his way into a nearby coffee shop angrily, throwing his bag on top of a nearby table and sliding into an empty chair. "So where are you?!"

Green eyes widened. "You're kidding me. Right. Well, let me know if there's anything I can do? My brother's a lawyer you know."

"Right. Okay then. No, I'll be fine; I'll just grab the next flight out of here. Seriously, I'm good." All of the anger drained out of Zach, and he even smiled slightly as he listened to the man on the other end of the phone. "Stay safe, alright? See you later, Wilson."

Zach hung up his phone and made a face. Then he smiled at the woman the next table over. "Would you mind watching my bag for just a moment? He asked politely. "I'm going to run to the restroom."

The woman smiled and nodded and Zach left his bag to head to a door on the other side of the building, and the man who'd been watching, who'd followed Zach from his friend's residence to a veteran's hospital his friend had been volunteering at, to the coffee shop both men were currently standing in, finally saw his chance.

He didn't think the woman seated at the next table, who'd vowed to watch Zach Daniel's bag, would take her job so seriously.

Before he'd even made it three feet from the table, Zach Daniel's bag over his shoulder, the woman had noticed.

And being the vicious American she was (and a new Yorker, at that,) the woman didn't stop to ask questions.

Instead, she was flying out of her seat, using her own bag, an expensive looking purse with a heavy buckle (that hurt when it made contact with one's head,) to attack whom she thought was a thief.

It was hardly stealing when the bag he had taken was his own!

But two burly men had come to the woman's rescue, even if she hadn't exactly needed it by the time they'd arrived, and he'd been manhandled from the shop, WITHOUT the bag.

He hadn't even been given an opportunity to grab what it was he really needed.

It was now time for drastic measures.

What exactly does DRASTIC MEASURES mean?!

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~CLC~